10+ Year Member

I have a dilemma: I love cosmetic surgery ( lipos, laser, botox and all this stuff ), but I don?t know if going through integrated plastics or dermatology+ dermatological surgery fellowship.
I don?t know which one because I don?t like dermapathology at all or strong surgeries like neurosurgery.
I?m considering only integrated plastics or dermatology.
what do you think would be better a 5-6 years plastics or the dermatology surgery way?
Which are the pros and cons of each one?
Thanks.
P.d. I realize that both are very competitive.

Moderator EmeritusVerified Expert10+ Year Member

Plastics & Reconstructive Surgery (PRS) and Dermatology are profoundly different specialties with only the slightest of overlap with some of the most superficial cosmetic procedures and skin cancers. PRS training (integrated or otherwise) is usually very intense, lots of call, long hours, and requires broad command of anatomy and function of multiple systems. Aesthetics are usually a modest part of the fellowship training and a number of people will do post-graduate fellowships in aesthetics if their particular training was not strong in it.

Derm. surgery is much more limited in the range of procedure they can perform and usually confined to superficial intervention (lasers, peels, etc.) for cosmetic surgeries in addition to some low-volume outpatient liposuction (dermatologists cannot, in general, get privledges to do this in a hospital and do them in their office surgery suites). A FEW derm guys will play around with superficial (ie skin only) facelifts, but most people would agree that this exceeds the scope of their training. This being said, you can make a very nice living doing a lot of the less invasive cosmetic procedures on people.

If you think that you would like to be a Plastic surgeon, but are scared off by doing general surgery first and think that an integrated PRS residency would be more to your liking I would reconsider. There has been an awful high attrition rate in the first 1-3 years of integrated PRS programs from people who could not survive in the preclinical general surgery years.

7+ Year Member

--------------quoting droliver:
If you think that you would like to be a Plastic surgeon, but are scared off by doing general surgery first and think that an integrated PRS residency would be more to your liking I would reconsider. There has been an awful high attrition rate in the first 1-3 years of integrated PRS programs from people who could not survive in the preclinical general surgery years.
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i'm curious... is there any way to look up what these attrition rates were? or do you know what they are or where these rates were published?

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